Are These Common Business Website Traps Limiting Your Long-Term Business Objectives?

Are These Common Business Website Traps Limiting Your Long-Term Business Objectives?

Don’t Limit Your Options! Plan Ahead!

We are a web design agency, so we talk with lots of business owners about their website. And most of them have great plans to grow their business, which means they need to expand their online presence as well. And that can be a problem some times. Why? Because if you don’t avoid common business website traps at the beginning you have limited options later!

It doesn’t matter if you have a simple brochure website or a robust e-commerce presence. Your business website can literally make or break your business. Either way, you can’t afford to treat your business website design as an afterthought. By giving this process careful thought most often you can avoid these common business website traps.

It does not matter if you are building your website in-house, or hiring a professional web designer or agency, here are three common, yet often overlooked, business website traps to avoid in order to get the most from your online investment.

That means text should be readable without zooming, nor should you need to scroll from left to right to see the entire web page. Make sure images and CTA buttons scale according to the viewing device. And forget about using Adobe Flash or other web technologies that are not mobile friendly.

Skimping on Website Hosting

Once your new business website is finished you need to park it somewhere. This is another one of our common business website traps! We understand, you just spent a bunch of money, and the urge to economize is great. Budget website hosting deals seem a great answer. But most often they are too good to be true, and don’t meet the needs of your businesses.

With 1% delay in site loading time, there is a possibility of losing 7% sale conversion. Moz

Budget hosting providers sound good initially. Many offer unlimited storage, so there’s no restriction on the size of your business website. You have unlimited bandwidth, so there’s no apparent restriction on how many people can visit your site. It sounds perfect, but many hidden limitations behind the scenes make it one of the most common business website traps.

Budget hosts run your business website on the same physical server as dozens or even hundreds of other websites. Each site is only permitted to use a fraction of the server’s memory and processing power. And this quickly becomes a problem. If your business website experiences a traffic spike, putting extra load on the server, the hosting company will take your website offline.

Vague Hosting Thresholds

Unfortunately, hosting providers usually keep things vague rather than specify exact usage thresholds. But you need to know what happens when your business website has a traffic spike. Some hosting companies will simply pull down your website and wait for you to complain; how nice of them! Others have less draconian policies, which throttle your site and return to normal service as the traffic spike eases.

So find out about these policies before you decide, especially if you’re signing up for a long-term contract, or you might be stuck with a hosting deal that leaves you in the lurch when you need it most. If you’re expecting plenty of traffic then it might be worth paying extra for your own dedicated web server, or using a managed service like WPEngine. The added cost is negligible compared to what a loss in sales can cost you!

Ant type of business website hosting can vary widely in price and quality. This is especially true when it comes to E-Commerce sites. Be sure to avoid this common business website trap and compare different business website hosting options before you decide.

Limiting E-Commerce Options

The last of our common business website traps is limited to e-commerce sites. If you are selling products or services online, then your e-commerce platform is the most critical part of your business website. It must meet all of your current and future needs, especially if it’s impacting on your website design and choice of payment, shipping and fulfillment providers.

If you are a growing business it is very tempting to opt for a low-cost solution like Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify. But be wary of putting yourself at the mercy of an e-commerce platform that limits the number of items on your site or the number of sales you can process each month.

48% of the newcomers on the Internet want their sites to sell goods online. 84% of those websites work great on mobile devices. GoDaddy

As your business grows, you will either have to hand over more money or scrap your business website and start all over again. We recommend you carefully consider both short and long-term options and limitations before signing on the dotted line.

Your choice of e-commerce platform dictates your choice of back-end third-party service providers, such as your web hosting service, merchant facilities, and order fulfillment and delivery options. Some demand a slice of every transaction and can get greedy if they know you have no alternative but to use them.

Also consider whether your e-commerce solution requires complex and expensive integration in order to work with your financial package and other business systems. Perhaps you are integrating your e-commerce site with a marketing automation or CRM platform. Your web designer can help you determine your best options.

Avoiding Business Website Traps

Your business or e-commerce website is another area where you must balance your current budget with your long-term objectives. We always recommend that you look at the design and development of your business website as an ongoing effort rather than a one-time deal. That approach alone will help you avoid most common business website traps.

Our standard approach is to build business websites in phases. Start with the minimum viable version to launch, and build on that. Selecting industry standard components such as WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, and Square means that you are building a robust foundation on which to grow your business. As your business grows you can add more functionality and options.

By using standard building blocks and frameworks you avoid many common business website traps right from the start. Regardless of where your business is located, you will undoubtedly have no problems finding hosting providers and skilled experts ready to take your business website to the next level.

Of course, you can ignore these common business website traps and forge ahead regardless. And maybe you are even successful in initially maintaining and scaling your business website. But there will come a time when you hit a brick wall, and realize you can’t go any further. And that will be a very expensive moment!

Clint Eastwood’s character Dirty Harry cautioned: “A smart man knows his limitations.” As a smart business owner you should know your limitations, and avoid common business website traps. Trust us, it is the most time and cost-effective approach.

Additional Tips And Resources For Improving Your Business Website

If you need to get your business noticed online you may find these posts from our ESPRESSO Shots Blog helpful as well:

We Eliminate Business Website Traps!

Feel free reach out to us and learn more about our business and e-commerce website design services. Our team can help you determine exactly what type of website and options you need now and in the future, and help you avoid common business website traps. All you have to do is click the button below. The highly caffeinated team is here to help!

Do you have anything to add to our business website traps? Maybe you have your own example you can share? Please leave your comments below so our audience can benefit as well, and grab our feed so you don’t miss our next post! And help other business owners avoid potential website limitations by sharing this post with them!

Gregor is Co-Founder and CXO at ESPRESSO.digital, a multilingual WordPress web design studio based in Tokyo and Sendai, Japan. With over 20 years of experience in web, UX and information design he directs the information and UX strategy at PixoLabo @ ESPRESSO. As an experienced digital strategist, blockchain designer, and mobile-first web design advocate Gregor frequently consults and mentors startups in Asia and the US, and is an adjunct professor of design and user experience. He lives in Sendai, Japan, with his wife, an award winning designer and photographer, and their two cats Goma and Pixel. When he is not working he enjoys travel, gardening, and sampling new street food.

Related Posts

In his commencement address to the Stanford University class of 2005, Steve Jobs said, “[H]ave the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” He also once mentioned that people with passion can change the world – which is so very true.

How many of you gave any thought to the fact that everything you see online didn’t just magically appear, but it had to be designed by someone. And that/s where the fun (and the evolution bit) starts! Let’s take a look at some key moments in the evolution of web design.

In today’s digital and increasingly mobile world your website is no longer static, but rather an interactive online presence that needs to constantly adapt. By hiring a professional web design agency you ensure that all the components of your new website are optimized and designed to work together from the start.

Hiring a web designer is one of the most important things you need to do in order to get an effective and engaging online presence. But most businesses don’t give a lot of thought to hiring a web designer, which means their web design or website redesign project may not provide the required or expected results. Here is how you can do better!

It’s 2017, and mobile consumers are becoming ever more sophisticated. If you built your online store even a few years ago you may be missing out on a few essential must haves. Take a look at what your online audience expects to see on your e-commerce site, and what you need to do to attract, engage, and convert them.

Since 2013 more consumers access a business website on a mobile device before visiting the site on a laptop or desktop PC. In addition to being a Google Guideline having a mobile-optimized website that creates a seamless experience regardless of the viewer’s browser or mobile device is a necessity. Not the same as mobile design, responsive web design is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience across all mobile devices.

A few days ago a client told us he gets several thousand hits a day. Ouch; that must really hurt! But seriously, website hits don’t hurt, but they are not a good indication of having an effective business website. Since ‘hits’ include ‘bounces’ they are not an accurate tracking indicator. A much better option is to evaluate how many website visitors actually convert and take action. Our Conversion Rate Optimization for Business Websites provides you with a step-by-step guide to conversion rate optimization.

Small business owners don’t intend to create a bad online presence, but many of them keep making the same small business website mistakes! The main reasons are usually not knowing which obstacles stand in their way of online success, or how to eliminate these shortcomings. Today we want to point out common small business website mistakes and help you avoid them.

Many landing pages are not effective for capturing leads! Instead of attracting and engaging your target audience they turn it away instead. To help you do better we have come up with our complete guide to successful landing pages.

No matter what type of business you have or what your industry is, you are probably engaging in digital marketing of some kind already. But since digital marketing is not the same as traditional marketing many businesses fail to achieve the results they need. Here is how you can do better by avoiding 5 common digital marketing mistakes!

While having your business website hosted for less than a buck a month seems like a great idea, it really isn’t! If you can understand the basics about business website hosting you will be able to make better informed decisions yourself.

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is to believe that once their website is up and running, it can take care of itself. Regardless of how technically advanced your new or existing business website is it needs to be updated and maintained on a regular basis. And this is why your business needs a website maintenance plan.

A 2017 small business website survey showed that over one quarter of all small business in the US having no business website. And if your business has no business website you might as well close shop! to help you understand the value of having a business website here are three compelling reasons!

Many business owners make the mistake of getting a business website, and then never doing much with it. Instead of creating leads and revenue their website is just an online version of their marketing brochure. That can work for some businesses. But the rest of you require more than that from your online presence.